Time seemed to move sluggishly in this adventure, for it was still night in the circus. The Moon continued to accompany the family down below. “If only Caine were here to watch this with me,” she sighed.
An iridescent, floating ball appeared next to her, tone cheerful. “You should make your own beeping children then!”
Meanwhile, a child sat on the grass down below, balled up while rubbing his eyes. Another kid accompanied him, observing.
“I don't know where they went,” Little Jax wept into his knees.
“Mama and papa will be back soon,” Little Pomni reassured him.
“No, I’m talking about my frog friend!”
“If you stop crying, maybe they will come back,” his sister remarked. Little Jax slowed his sobbing to sniffles.
Nearby, the grass shuffled towards their direction. Little Pomni looked up to catch a tall figure.
A white chess piece cloaked in a purple robe with white and black fur trimming gazed at the kids in awe. “That’s… odd. Can we reproduce in the circus, or are you NPCs?”
Little Pomni stood in front of her brother, crossing her arms. “Mum and dad didn't tell us this yet, but we shouldn't be talking to strangers.”
“Ah, but you just did!” Kinger giggled. Little Pomni pouted. “Where are your parents?”
The girl shrugged.
“Do you need help locating them?”
She shook her head.
Kinger glanced at the boy hunched over before returning his attention to Little Pomni. “Well, I would help you locate them, but it's also no good to follow strangers either,” Kinger crouched down to her level. “Do you mind if I wait here with you?”
Little Pomni wavered before shaking her head. Her brother was still balled up, his eyes shut tight with his nose running. Kinger sat down next to him, carefully analyzing him.
“Don’t worry, buddy, your parents will come back. They didn’t forget about you,” he spoke lightly.
Little Jax didn't move, his muscles still tensed.
The three of them sat there, exchanging nothing but silence. For the first time since the kids were born, the circus was calm. Momentarily. Hurried footsteps came towards them. Little Pomni perked up, her eyes shining bright.
“Dad! Cookies?”
Jax shook his head and scoffed. “Listen, kids, you're coming with me,” he grabbed both children as if they were sacks of flour; Little Pomni by the ears and her brother by his hat. There was no resisting; the girl had apathy. Little Jax still looked depressed.
Kinger’s eyes shot wide open. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there! That's not how you handle children.”
Jax sneered at this. “Sorry, didn't see you there. Or are you really here?”
Kinger furrowed his eyebrows. He glanced at the kids. Oddly enough, the children just casually dangled from Jax’s hands, unbothered.
“You seem to know what you're doing,” Kinger speculated.
“Yeah, yeah, because fatherhood was so made for me,” Jax sassed. The rabbit didn't expect anything lucid coming from Kinger, yet here it was. He shrugged it off.
“So you and Pomni took the next step in your relationship and asked Caine for help with that?”
This broke Jax. He chortled, bending over while still gripping the children tight. They just watched their father in awe.
“Whatever you say, old man.”
Kinger just observed the rabbit. To Jax, Kinger was “the crazy one”. But there's little the bunny knew about the oldest human in the circus. The Moon watched with curiosity as the stars twinkled in the night sky.
Jax continued, tears in his eyes. “Pomni and I are such great friends that we fell in love along the way. The viewers like friends-to-lovers, don't they?”
Kinger’s voice was gentle. “I can tell you're being sarcastic, Jax.” The rabbit was surprised by this. “Did something happen between you two?”
Jax's pupils became pinpoints. He made a sound of disbelief, the smile he lost coming back from amusement. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
The rabbit wasn’t sure what was happening. Did Caine clone Kinger? But he wouldn’t do that, for he didn’t want to confuse the humans with NPCs. The closest thing Caine did to cloning was creating evil versions of the cast. But any hypothesis can be shot down with the unpredictability of the circus.
The chess piece read his intense, unresponsive look. Kinger approached Jax and laid a hand on his shoulder. The bunny flinched, backing away from him. Kinger didn’t follow in pursuit. He spoke tenderly. “You know… I’m no good at relationships, either.”
Jax didn’t make eye contact, nor did he respond. But he didn’t move away from where he stood. It could be the weight of the children in his hands, or the weight of the burdens the rabbit carried. Regardless, he was weighed down, motionless. Kinger continued to speak, gently.
“I did things that I regret. And now… they’re no longer with us." He paused, with a faraway look. "I sometimes blame myself for the things that happened.”
Jax frowned. He hated this. When Pomni showed concern, it was his mistake. He was too vulnerable with her. He thought pushing her away was the answer to what’s best for both of them. Pomni doesn’t deserve to be friends with an asshole. He’s supposed to be “the funny one,” the one who causes entertainment, mostly for himself. He’s not “the funny one who gets chummy with other people.” He rides solo.
But now this grandpa, someone he barely talked to during his time stuck here, is showing concern. It’s creepy. I’m not a child, I don’t need a lecture. He wanted to blurt and smile. He wanted to shrug it off. Do the things he does best.
He still didn’t move a muscle. The kids stared at their dad, confused.
Little Jax reached his hand up to poke his dad at his side. “Are there things you blame yourself for, papa?”
He noticed Little Jax was missing his frog companion, who resembled… Ribbit.
Jax plopped the kids to the ground, annoyed. They proceeded to stand next to him, waiting for an answer. The rabbit kept his mouth shut, crossing his arms and frowning.
Kinger didn’t push Jax any further. “You know, isolating yourself isn’t the answer. No one deserves to be alone.”
Jax didn’t say anything. He doesn’t know why Kinger cared, which was annoyingly similar to Pomni. Little Pomni gave her dad a pat. “Do you need a hug, papa?”
Jax was contemplative, but kept his arms to his sides. God, did he feel pathetic and exposed. It was too uncomfortable, but he was too tired to continue his charade. The weight of his problems was getting to him again. Little Pomni nodded at her brother before embracing her dad’s side. Little Jax embraced the other side. It’s been a while since the rabbit found himself sandwiched by hugs.
Kinger’s eyes formed tears. “Wow, you raised them well.”
Jax didn’t say anything, a withdrawn expression painted permanently on his face. From a distance, The Moon saw an awkward hug being exchanged between the children and their father. Someone would have to be close enough, like Kinger, to notice that Jax’s ears started to droop, along with his head. He was succumbing to the temptations of affection.
Author's note: Hi there everybody! Here's another entry to the TADC AU everyone forgot about and one I am too stubborn to let go until I've finished the story. Take note of the tags and warnings before reading this chapter. It is a mature story not intended for young audiences.
WARNING: MATURE CONTENT:
Violence/Gore Murder and talk thereof
Angst Emotional/Psychological Manipulation
Emotional/Psychological Abuse
Physical Abuse
Self-harm And Implied Self-Harm
SUMMARY: The group now found themselves flung into the adventure that Zooble coaxed Caine into; reunite at the centre of a House of Mirrors. With nothing but seemingly themselves to face, the strained group have no choice but to find each other and stick it out together. As their special abilities were immobilised for the sake of the adventure, each of the character have little to no advantage. No one is happy with the objective.
CHAPTER 2
It blinked.
It blinked before she did.
Standing right in front of her, was the spitting image of herself, reflecting every move, every breath and every shift.
All but her eyes.
One was blue and one was green; they were staring holes into her. They were studying her; tracking her. Under her reflected gaze, she felt naked and exposed.
Violated by her own, unwavering stare.
It was puzzling, really; it looked like her, it moved like her... It even breathed like her, but the eyes of the thing staring back at her didn’t reflect the way her eyes widened in shock, the way her gaze darted from one eye to the other – back and forth; back and forth.
It didn’t blink when she did.
It wasn’t her, but she couldn’t prove it.
It could’ve been a trick of her eye...?
It wasn’t a clear-cut case.
It didn’t feel like her.
Then it blinked.
It sent Pomni jumping back with all of the absent hair on the surface of her skin standing on end. Movements so subtle that it wasn’t something she should have noticed.
But she did notice.
It was there, and it was watching her, all while it pretended to be her.
She knew it wasn’t.
She was too anxious by nature, to accept it.
Minutes ticked by, even as the air was frozen. The surrounding sounds seemed to be sucked from the air, aside from her shaky, muffled breaths and her pulse beating in her own ears. That thing in the mirror, mimicked her breathing; and in any other sense it would have been soothing to see it.
She kept her eyes on it as if it was her job, but other than the unnerving feeling of it’s intense, heterochromic gaze, it did nothing else.
Pomni lifted her one hand steadily, as she spied the reflection’s every move.
Identical.
She waved hesitantly.
Flawless mimicry.
A movement was caught in the corner of her eye and her soul almost left her body as she got spooked by the sight of another angle of her form right beside her. She locked eyes with that one for a full second, feeling that same unwavering stare settling to bite an icy chill at the back of her neck.
Finally, the little jester fully turned around to get a full 360 degree view. Reflections of herself were surrounding her frantic form; each locking their green and blue eyes with her pie-cut ones.
Everywhere she looked, they met her gaze; even in her peripheral vision, they looked right at her.
That didn’t make any sense.
Her ears were burning as the ordeal had her shrinking into herself. Numerous sets of eyes were fixed onto her from all directions.
It was hard not to sink under it.
Breathe…
But that just wasn’t how she did things.
She pushed.
That is what she did.
Pushing on.
She was too stubborn to sink into sand and she was too tired of being stuck. Whether it was forward or backwards, she chose to move.
To keep breathing.
Because somehow, dying seemed too absolute; too easy. Pomni was never one to believe in ‘easy.’ If the world beat onto her back, she bent. If fate chained her to the ankles of her muse, she’d follow. If the Digital Circus turned her into a monster, then she’d gouge her nails as deep as roots.
The little jester felt an invisible force tug at the back of her neck as she turned her face away from the imposters that surrounded her small frame; even as she looked away, she was able to feel them all watching her. It felt dangerous to ignore them, but she reminded herself that she was partaking in Caine’s adventure.
There was an objective.
There was a goal.
Blinking her mind into focus, she looked beyond the eyes staring back at her. She searched all around her, looking for instructions – clues – details. Anything to explain what it is that she had to do to complete the adventure.
So she could go back to Gangle.
She must be holding herself together much better than she did.
“Come on…” the harlequin hissed at herself through gritted teeth, “Focus. I need an objective.”
She wandered around, reluctant to touch the surface of the mirrors, but grazed along them anyway; all while refusing to look at herself. The girl searched the checker-tiles and she searched the podium in which she entered the adventure. She even looked passed her own reflections to see if something was written in the voids behind her doppelgangers. The jester cringed internally at the thought of her face being so close to a being that pretended to be her; just beyond a thin sheet of glass.
Nothing.
She couldn’t even find an exit – her search leading her to believe that she was trapped in a box. The girl tried stretching her legs, utilizing her personalised ability to try to peek over the seemingly endless sheets of mirrors, only to find that it was still disabled. Whether it was a glitch from being pulled apart from Gangle, while the ribbonoid inhibited her stretching ability, or if it was the ringmaster doing it for the kick of it.
It probably didn’t matter.
At that point, the little jester was on her hands and knees as she crawled along the space, looking for anything - anything.
But there was nothing.
The fear of being stuck suddenly felt worse that the fear of being watched. Pomni paused to take it in; the dread – the helplessness. Despite herself, the jester sought refuge in the foreign eyes of her reflection. She was met with a pair of eyes, one green and one blue, blankly staring back at her.
“I don’t know what you want.” Pomni said to no one in particular, eyes fixed on the thing in the mirror, “I don’t know what to do.”
The reflection didn’t answer.
It looked.
An unceremonious screech left the jester’s throat as the heterochromic eyes flicked into a direction and remained fixed. The girl scrambled away from the reflection, only to bump into the glass behind her, then realizing that there was also a reflection that was unseen, right on the other side of the glass she was pressed up against. The phantom sensation of hands reaching out from the mirror to lock their grip around her wrists, gnawed at the back of her neck and she was quick to dart away while frantically brushing at her sides, as if insects were crawling all over her.
The jarring terror of the thing in the mirror finally breaking character, almost caused the girl’s mind to break into sheer panic. All her surrounding reflections mimicked her frantic startles about the box that the harlequin was trapped in, as Pomni got turned around.
She forgot which one the imposter was. Her head was flung from side to side as she searched them all.
It took a few seconds for the blearing panic to die down.
It took only a second longer to realise that none of them were looking at her anymore.
Somehow, that didn’t comfort her.
Like treading water, Pomni found the ebb and flow of the air entering and exiting her lungs once again, as she peered about the various reflections and their fixation.
They all had their gazes fixed into the same direction.
It was chilling.
The little jester found herself looking for the supposed union point. It didn’t look like anything she hadn’t seen before. The mirrors reflected off each other, giving off various angles of her profile, making it hard not to walk into one of them. At the time, Pomni used the entry podium as a marker to find her way – it was impossible to miss it, as her floating name did not reflect into any of the mirrors; so it was clearly the only one.
Regardless, red and blue slippers found their way wandering to the area that her reflections were fixated on – and naturally, she was met with another reflection of herself, staring right at her. She dreaded to touch it, but with no other options, she reached out, as did the reflection reach to her.
Pomni expected her gloved fingers to meet the cool, smooth surface of the mirror, yet as she reached out, all she was met with, was air. The girl nearly stumbled under her weight that leaned into the expected touch.
“Huh?”
Hesitantly, Pomni took a step forward, then another, scrunching her face in anticipation for her fingers to meet the flat surface. It took another 3 steps before it finally happened.
But something was off.
As the gloved hand touched the surface, Pomni’s hand twisted to an uncomfortable angle to be flat against the glass. Despite the very clear image staring right at her, the surface was diagonal in relation to where she was facing. Upon looking back at the ‘box,’ she remembered the odd angles she was met with while searching for an exit.
It wasn’t exactly a box.
It just had 4 sides. Uneven sides.
The harlequin had the bump on her head to prove it.
Smoke and mirrors.
Pomni looked back at the podium with her floating name above it and held her eyes onto it as she walked along the new, diagonal wall. It vanished behind the surface of another mirror, making the jester stop, then lean back, to see if it was still there.
It was still there, which meant that she made it into a new area.
Progress!
She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding as her mind raced at the bizarre revelation of how she got to this point. With a reluctant acceptance of what she needed to do, she looked upon her face in the mirror, dead eyes staring right back at her own.
“Okay.” Pomni said, as if she cemented the decision into her mind, before searching for answers from the one baring someone else’s eyes in her very reflection, “Show me where I need to go.”
Ther reflection in question didn’t respond.
It looked.
The game was set.
Careful and cautious, with her hands gliding along the smooth reflective surfaces of the mirrors, she entered a game of Marco-Polo. Pomni prompted; her reflections guided. At times the path ahead looked impossible – like a dead end that would leave her with another bump on her head, but she never knocked into anything. It was clear that this was the mechanic of the maze; and once followed, it was fairly easy.
The greatest obstacles were her own eyes, not being quick to believe what was, in fact, the path forward.
The images of herself – the imposters in the mirrors – became less and less of a threat as she navigated the house of mirrors. It became easier to see them as tools, rather than doppelgangers. She generally made sure to use two as reference to figure out in which general direction to head, while she had to use more than that to find the exact location for the handful of tight squeezes she encountered.
Heaven knew how Zooble had the patience to handle those…
With all of those limbs…?
They probably had to remove them all manually; and chuck them through one by one.
Where were the others…?
Were they managing more than she was?
A sudden bout of loneliness nipped at her heart, but she shook it off. There was no time for sulking.
Pomni curiously casted a few glances to the reflection that she tried to always keep to her left.
What were the chances?
Pomni stopped, eyes looking to both her feet, before looking to her reflection, which also stopped, mimicking her every move. All but the eyes faced her, still following her prompt to show her where to go.
To the girl’s surprise, the blue and green eyes met hers, blinking once as they seemed… almost startled at the question.
None of the other body parts moved other than what Pomni moved herself, so all it could do was look around with its eyes and blink.
Blink…
That’s it!
“Okay… Okay!” Pomni said, assuring herself before looking back to the being in the mirror, “Two blinks means ‘Yes’ and One blink means ‘No.’ Do you understand me?”
Two blinks. <Yes>
“HA!” The jester cheered louder than she meant to, immediately recoiling at how her own voice carried, “Sorry!”
The jester was met with a blank stare; and beyond how awkward it was, the harlequin took it as her queue to continue.
Maybe it had some answers…
“Are you an NPC?” Pomni cringed as she asked that, having had less-than-desirable experiences with NPC’s and their perception of their own being. The reflection did not respond immediately; it seemed to hesitate. It looked to it’s left, then it’s right, reminding Pomni of how unsettling it was to interact with her own, apparently sentient reflection.
Two blinks. <Yes>
“Where are you taking-? Ugh, no, Pomni; ‘Yes or No’ questions.” Pomni scolded herself, before looking back to the green and blue eyes, “Are you taking me to the exit?”
It blinked once.
Pomni blinked once.
The little jester was then met with a blank stare.
One blink meant ‘No.’
…no? NO?!
“What do you mean, ‘No?!’” the girl asked incredulously, feeling the self-deprecating humiliation of putting her blind trust into something so foolishly, “I told you to show me where to go!”
Two blinks. <Yes>
A good second passed by.
“…I’m sorry, what?” Pomni said, eyes squinted as she tried to think her way through this limited communication.
Limited by a fault. A frustrating fault.
“So let me get this straight…” Pomni let out a breath, then faced her own face in the mirror, feeling crazy for arguing with her own reflection, “You are showing me where to go, but it ISN’T the exit.”
Two blinks. <Yes>
A moment passed by in which one could practically see the gears turning in the little jester’s head. Rage was replaced with smoke steaming from the girl’s ears.
Then, finally, it clicked.
“Are you… taking me to an… objective?” the words clumsily stumbled from the harlequin’s mouth.
The response was immediate.
Two blinks. <Yes>
“Oh god, there’s MISSIONS to this?!” Pomni grumbled, hanging her head into her hands, missing the two blinks in response from the reflection, but looking right at it again to complain with a whine, “We’ve been walking for an hour!”
One blink. <No>
“No? Not even an hour?”
<No>
“Ugh, stop sassing me.” The girl growled in annoyed accusation, as if a pair of eyes had the capacity to sass anyone.
One blink was the only response the jester got.
One blink meant ‘No.’
“Why you-!”
It was infuriating, but… damn it, it was a relief to argue, even if it was merely with her own reflection. She let out a breath, and she felt like she was able to think again.
It felt too long since.
“Just…” Pomni lifted her head, unamused as she looked up into the heterochromic gaze that was practically taunting her at this point, “Just take me to where I need to go.”
It blinked once again, but only with one eye.
It took a second for the audacity to be recognised, but Pomni was sure to retaliate with a deadpanned stare of her own.
Because it had the nerve to wink at her.
“I’m done talking to you.”
With a new mindset, Pomni set off again, wondering what the mission entailed. Not only that, but if everyone had their own mission.
There was no use in trying to decipher what it could be with the reflections; it would take too long, while she could utilise the time to be traveling – which had proven to take up a lot of the time, in the girl’s opinion.
The journey was just short from becoming tedious, before distant bashing of glass made it’s way to the two-toned character’s ears. It was irregular with no rhyme or rhythm to the sounds.
BASH. BASH. BASH-BASH.
It was unsettling…
But it was a sign of life!
Pomni quickly checked the surrounding reflections for the directions she was expected to go; all while the smashing sounds of glass shattering seemed to move away. The reflections didn’t guide her in the exact direction of the sounds, but Pomni didn’t lose hope.
It was a maze, after all.
Just as she thought that, the sounds of glass being shattered, seemed to hover around the same area for a moment, before moving towards her again.
That was it.
That was her objective!
Pomni moved as fast as her mobility would allow it in the house of mirrors. There were a few close calls in almost knocking into the reflective surfaces, but the promising sounds of the bashing of glass getting closer and closer, made the girl push on with more and more vigour.
It wasn’t long, before the flicker of a foreign body entered her peripherals, appearing in the corners of some of the mirrors, while it was vacant from the others. The two-toned harlequin’s heart began to thud louder and louder in her chest as the person that she was pursuing appeared more regularly.
How did these mazes and mirrors work to achieve that?!
It felt like an endless trail of twists and turns before she started at the crystal clear image of a character glaring right at her; standing right in front of her.
A dark shadow loomed over her frozen form.
Golden eyes locked onto hers before it’s hand was hoisted into the air. The girl wanted to flinch – to turn to somehow redirect the blow, but she couldn’t.
It was fast. Faster than she could ever imagine.
Her aggressor brought the hoisted fist down towards her small stature.
Then, in a blink, the sound of glass smashing accompanied the sight of the character before her, fracturing into broken shards right before her eyes.
There was silence.
A startled exhale left the jester.
Then another.
Until more of them fell into rhythm of a soft pant as the broken image of the still looming figure before Pomni, stared holes into her skull.
With a soft gulp and a slow pan to the left, Pomni was met with the unbroken, real sight of him standing hunched over her; fist collided with the now smashed mirror she previously looked to.
“Jax.”
He turned his head, only slightly, as if to acknowledge her voice, then stubbornly gave his head a harsh shake, fixating it on the sight of his shattered reflection. He then pushed off the surface with a sneer and shook his battered, gloved hands as if to shake off the pain, before his arms limply hung to his sides. His expression fixed into one of annoyance and boredom as his entire frame was slumped over, facing half-away from the jester, no longer acknowledging her.
Pomni wasn’t sure if she was supposed to feel relieved or insulted.
“S-Sorry... you startled me.” The words stumbled out of Pomni’s mouth, unplanned and uncomfortable.
She didn’t know why she bothered.
Jax never really acknowledged her before; not unless she was the butt of a violent bit for his own bemusement... or indirectly, by spewing insults and passive-aggressive comments about her to the others.
The most direct that the rabbitoid been towards the girl, had ALWAYS ended in her pain. Even then, the interaction never seemed to be by choice.
A shove if she was in the way.
A kick to the gut, if she was talking to someone he wanted attention from.
Assault, if he couldn’t ignore her.
And then it was brushed off, like it meant nothing – because it probably didn’t mean anything than a minor inconvenience for him to overcome.
Pomni made peace with that fact; it was easy if all any of the interactions with him would lead to a harsh, violent act of rejection. The problem came with the adventures and general group interactions. They couldn’t avoid each other then.
Like this very moment.
Based on the fact that the sadistic rabbit chose to progress by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs – or rather, smashing the mirrors of where he had been before, led the harlequin to believe that Jax did not know about the mechanic to ask the reflections to guide him to objectives.
Or his objective was simply different from hers; she didn’t know.
Either way, they were together now. Her guides lead her to him, and they had no choice but to work together to figure out what to do next. Pomni awkwardly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, shrinking under the unpleasant silence that stretched between them.
He made no effort to speak… but he also made no effort to leave.
He was just standing there.
He looked miserable at best.
That gave Pomni enough clues to know that he realised their predicament too.
Boy, was it just awkward beyond belief…
“Look…” she said, her tongue feeling like sandpaper in her mouth, “This isn’t ideal. I get that more than you think.”
She caught a subtle glimpse of him jerking his head away, stubbornly avoiding any chance of looking at her – quiet as the grave. It was out of character for him, Pomni realised, when he had no snarky, smug remarks to make, no interest to taunt and no limits to push.
But he reacted and that was all that Pomni needed to know that he was, in fact, listening for once.
“I see you’ve been smashing the mirrors…?” the jester continued, internally writhing at how unbearable this one-sided interaction had been, “They’ve been freaking me out too.”
There was no response.
Not knowing what to do, she looked over to his reflection in the opposite, unbroken mirror; one in which she could see herself as well, sporting the foreign eyes of green and blue. The visual made her do a double take – something wasn’t right.
A frosty chill crawled up her spine.
Her reflection was as it always had been, mimicking her every move aside from her eyes; but they weren’t staring at her with the blank expression she had grown used to. The eyes, adorned with heterochromia, were widened and struck with undeniable alarm as they remained fixed onto the reflection of Jax, eyeing it, like it was about to kill her doppelganger in the mirror.
Pomni’s eyes trailed along her reflection’s line of sight, only for it to finally land of the reflection of Jax.
A soft gasp left her as she actually saw it.
It was identical to Jax.
There was no difference. No different coloured eyes. No change in his expression from what he really wore. Absolutely no difference at all.
Only her reflection was different from reality.
Before she could properly form a coherent thought, the sight of Jax spotting her gaze in the mirror, morphed his expression into a vicious snarl. He charged to lunge to the reflective surface and flung his fist into the glass, butchering his already-bloodied knuckles as the shards cut into them. He held Pomni’s bewildered stare with a ferocious scowl of his own, the lighting giving his golden irises a glint that made it seem like they were glowing with malice intent – a spitting image of hatred.
But it was still his perfect image, reflected as he was in reality.
Upon her eyes refusing to leave his in the mirror, he let out a growl as he pushed off the surface and stalked towards the girls with what seemed like murderous intent. She almost preferred it when he refused to look at her, because his glowering eyes disarmed any sense of safety she thought she had.
His actions spoke clear enough.
‘Don’t look at me.’
She dared to do it; oblivious to how it apparently angered him – and now she was going to bare whatever brutal punishment he saw fit.
As always.
A choked cry was ripped from her as Jax’s large yellow glove grabbed hold of her throat; strangely vacant from the claws she expected to feel.
Her thoughts couldn’t linger on the conclusion that it appeared that ALL of their character-abilities were disabled, because the back of her head was harshly slammed into the mirror behind her, promptly breaking that one too. Her vision blurred as the rabbit cut off her air supply, but it wasn’t enough to hinder her ability to spot the green and blue eyes in her reflection suddenly glowing brightly.
They were glaring at the reflection of Jax, which she could only see the back of.
“Why…?” Her hoarse voice squeezed out from her throat, finally settling her gaze onto the Jax that was currently choking her, “Why is… your’s normal…?”
Her vision was about to go black.
Then she felt weightless.
Weightless, until the harsh, blaring impact on the side of her body knock the adrenaline right back into her. She coughed and wheezed, cradling her burning throat as her vision blurred back into a clearer image.
The image of two, long rabbit legs taking a staggering step back, then another, until his knees limply met the ground.
Pomni weakly looked up, panting harshly, meeting an expression of Jax she hadn’t seen directed toward her before.
Bewilderment.
“Your… reflection…” The girl painfully coughed out, slowly regaining control of her breathing, despite the raspy sensation of her throat, “It’s normal. Why isn’t mine?”
Jax took a second to search her eyes, as if looking for something, before twisting his expression into confusion and looking up to the shattered image of himself behind Pomni’s slumped-over form.
He was looking at it, as if he didn’t recognize himself.
His eyes moved about his frame – and even beyond that – based on what Pomni could see, taking in his reflection with a disbelief that matched her own when she first saw herself in the mirror.
Jax shifted to accommodate for his head swinging around to take in the unbroken visual of his and Pomni’s reflections in the unbroken mirror. Golden eyes with shrunken pupils flicked from her reflection, back to his, as if comparing the two. He especially studied her reflection, like he was critically analysing every detail of her, scrunching his nose briefly, as if he couldn’t find what he was looking for, before giving his own a brief, disgusted glance, then settling his eyes back onto the real Pomni with a look of inconvenience.
Realization dawned upon Pomni.
He didn’t see what SHE saw.
Just like she couldn’t see what HE saw.
Whatever monstrosity Jax saw himself to be in the mirror, was hidden to her in the place of his true reflection.
That also meant that he couldn’t see the foreign eyes of her reflection. To him, she looked normal too.
What did he see?
“You don’t see it, do you?” Pomni asked softly after she had stumbled to her feet and stood 5 feet to his side, looking at the green and blue eyes of her reflection, now ridded of their vibrant glow from before.
Much to her surprise, she heard Jax’s voice.
“Neither do you… Because if you did…?” He asked rhetorically, chuckling as he looked off to the side, like he was laughing at a bitter joke, “You wouldn’t be able to unsee it. Even after we get out of this place.”
What did he see?
Why did it matter, now?
“Jax? I think I know the way out.” Pomni said carefully, making sure not to look at him, “I’ve found you, didn’t I? I believe we need to find the others – and I know how to do that.”
She nodded at her reflection, which promptly looked into the direction that Jax came from; guiding the way as it had before. Pomni cringed at the trail of the smashed mirrors that Jax left in his clumsy, blind prowl to escape, but she figured, that she would only need a window to see her reflection’s eyes to guide her way through the maze.
She boldly looked up to him with a new determination, knowing that he could break her if he still wanted to.
“Based on what I see, you don’t know your way around this place.”
He sneered at her, then rolled his eyes, folding his arms defensively, averting his gaze.
The jester wanted to smirk, but she knew better of it, “Come along if you want, but I’m getting the others and then I’m getting out of here.”
She set off, into the direction her reflection’s eyes were trained into.
The harlequin didn’t even consider explaining the navigation mechanic to Jax, not thinking that he deserved to know.
He didn’t seem keen to acknowledge his reflection anyway…
Much to her surprise, she heard the soft thuds of Jax’s footsteps trailing after her fleeting form and she smirked despite knowing better.
A sudden grip nearly crushing her skull and a sharp stabbing pain to the side of her head knocked the smile right off her face as her obscured vision only allowed her to see the new cracks cutting through the pre-existing one’s Jax left on his journey before.
He bashed her head into the mirror.
“Don’t think this changes anything.” He hissed right beside her face, before dropping her dazed, limp form to the floor. He watched in mild amusement as a small trace of the black ooze that Pomni came to know as her blood, stained the center of the crooked spiderweb that her head made into the cracked glass trickled down to the floor.
The girl was only met with his smug expression once she had the strength to glare up at him. Pomni sneered at the man in anger, as he casually commanded her, like she was nothing but a bloodhound trailing a scent.
“Walk on, b&#%.”
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